Using feelings as signposts: a revelation for an over-thinker

You don’t need drastic change. No need to quit the job, sell the house, overhaul your diet, chop your hair. 

If you’ve ever felt trapped by the many responsibilities of being a grown-up, it can sometimes feel like what you want is waaaaay out there. Far away and out of reach.

Even in a single day it can be a challenge to get to be the ‘you’ you’d like to be instead of the one that seems to have taken over your mind and body. Mindful mummy vs snappy and short-tempered. Clean eater vs emotional binger. Content vs anxious. It all feels a big leap from here to there.

One idea is to instead go for incremental gains.

The idea, cherry-picked from the sporting world, put simply means focusing on the next, little baby step. One step forward gets you moving away from one and toward the other. Nope, you’re not going to jump in a single moment from feeling anxious to zen, or angry to joyful, but you can move in a moment (after a few deep breaths) from angry to disappointed. And then, when you’re ready, from disappointed to, maybe, some kind of acceptance. And step-by-step that fog starts to lift.

Emotions are a scale.

Remember the pH scale you learned in science? Alkaline - Neutral - Acid. In the same way, our emotions can creep along the scale from ‘acidic’ feelings to something a little more neutral… and beyond. 

That idea helps me. Does it help you? When who I want to be, and the things I want to create from that space, seem far-removed from my reality it gives me some comfort to think I can take baby steps to move myself out of the rut. In moments when I’ve felt suffocating, overwhelming anxiety, it would have been good to realise I don’t have to leap to being someone else. The trick is to be aware of where you are right now and then reach for a feeling that is incrementally better. All of a sudden, momentum is on your side and you’re in an upward spiral instead.

And so, when you think the long-haul adventure or new job or some other thing out there is going to fix it, pause. Do something, anything, that gets you moving to a slightly better feeling. Cry into a pillow, dance, run a hot bath. That thing you’ve believed is the fix, the answer, isn’t necessarily what you’ve been looking for all along - maybe that feeling is just one baby step away.

But get the hair-cut, always get the haircut. (*wink)